


Flour

by dazedream



Series: music is her religion [2]
Category: CLAMP - Works, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baking, CLAMP Femslash Fest, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazedream/pseuds/dazedream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is flour in Tomoyo’s normally pristine hair, and some of the combined butter and sugar still clings to her fingers. The sensation is both gritty and greasy and decidedly unpleasant and she fends off a grimace as she walks over to the sink to rinse her hands, but everything is worth it for the grin on Hokuto’s face, and the heavenly smell of the baking cookies emanating from the oven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flour

There is flour in Tomoyo’s normally pristine hair, and some of the combined butter and sugar still clings to her fingers. The sensation is both gritty and greasy and decidedly unpleasant and she fends off a grimace as she walks over to the sink to rinse her hands, but everything is worth it for the grin on Hokuto’s face, and the heavenly smell of the baking cookies emanating from the oven.

Plus Hokuto has flour in her hair, too, more than Tomoyo has in hers (and Tomoyo has a lot more hair than Hokuto) so Tomoyo can’t really feel self-conscious about it.

Tomoyo walks back towards Hokuto, who sits perched on the kitchen table toying with an egg timer, rising up on her toes a little to peck her girlfriend on the cheek. They both smell like home-baking and cookies, a smell that Tomoyo loves. She’s always loved to bake; it’s one of the few things her mother can always find a few spare minutes to come and help with. Sonomi loved baking with her mother when she was a child, which is part of it.  It’s easier to spend time passing the mixing bowl back and forth and bending down to catch a glimpse of what’s in the oven than talking about what Tomoyo does at school, and Sonomi’s work. Tomoyo won’t be expected to take over the company when her mother dies, but Sonomi is of the mind that Tomoyo should go into business or finance when she leaves school, somewhere she’ll have an ‘assured future’. She’s only ever wanted to do two things, though, since she was old enough to dress her dolls and push the button on the camera her mother held obligingly; fashion, or the film industry. She’s good at these things too, she knows, else she wouldn’t have fought her mother over them. Sonomi sees them as hobbies, things to be enjoyed, certainly. But not career material.

It is not in Tomoyo’s nature to fight and argue; she has never let these discussions escalate to raised voices and threats. The only thing that renders them able to back down peacefully every time is that both women believe they are right, and that the other will come around eventually. It is Tomoyo’s life, though. Her mother cannot stop her saving her own money to spend on a university of her choosing, or stop her sending applications to these universities. Tomoyo is secure in this; she will have her own way when the day is done. But she still has years of school ahead of her before she must make these decisions and present them to her mother, so they are as polite as they can be when spending time together.

And her mother has always praised even her most disastrous creations (of which there are thankfully few, Tomoyo is somewhat of a natural in the kitchen), always encouraging her love of baking, like she encourages Tomoyo’s passion for clothes and music.

The two of them aren’t in the spacious, modern kitchen of the Daidouji home at the moment, but the small kitchen in Hokuto’s apartment that leads onto the living area, so Tomoyo can see the outside world through the window-doors to the balcony as she takes the egg timer and twists it to count down from half an hour. She kisses Hokuto again and wonders at the sweetness of her mouth, drawing back to frown at her. The pout on Hokuto’s face from clearly having ended the kiss too soon does little to sway Tomoyo, and she crosses her arms over her flour-caked, apron-covered chest.

(Baking with her mother had never been this messy, and it’s one of the things Tomoyo finds she loves the most about cooking with her girlfriend; that, and Hokuto’s kitchen is far easier to clean than the Daidouji’s.)

“Did you eat some of the cookie batter before we put it in the oven?”

“No?” Hokuto’s denial seems to be for her sake in some way (whether it be a futile attempt to sooth her or a highly effective attempt to ruffle her feathers) as she evidently _has_ eaten some of the cookie dough and is even more obviously unrepentant. There’s flour streaked on her cheek as well, and such energy to her sparkling eyes and beaming smile. So happy, so carefree… Tomoyo could not love her more if she tried.

_All you have to do is smile like that, and I’ll forgive you anything._

“You are lying to me, Miss Sumeragi,” she says, uncrossing her arms, but all Hokuto does is grin wider at her apparent forgiveness.

“Just checking the ingredients were all good!” she says brightly, not even trying for innocence. “And they were, Tomoyo-chan, those cookies are going to be _delicious_. What type did we make again? You should have allowed me to add the chocolate chips, that would make them taste even more great. I bet even Subaru would like them with chocolate chips.”

“They’re vanilla sugar cookies, and the chocolate chips would have made them too sweet. And your brother doesn’t like things that are too sweet.”

“Chocolate chips make everything better!” Hokuto argues.

“Well, maybe next time we can decrease the amount of sugar, and maybe put in some white chocolate chips. I don’t know how the consistencies will mix, though…”

“You take baking way too seriously, Tomoyo-chan,” Hokuto interjects into Tomoyo’s line of thought, throwing her arms around her girlfriend’s neck in a gleeful show of affection. “Baking is creative! An expression of emotions in flavours and textures, that’s how it should be. And besides, we can never add too much sugar! It’s too much sugar that _makes_ a proper cookie! How long are those cookies going to be, anyway?”

“Long,” Tomoyo says absently, having moved across the room to the mirror and is (unsuccessfully) trying to brush the flour out of her hair. “You forgot to preheat the oven.”

“Oops.” This time, Hokuto does actually sound contrite, so of course this time, Tomoyo can’t even begin to be annoyed at her. “I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter, Hokuto-chan,” Tomoyo smiles, pulling loose the ribbon that ties her braid and carding her fingers through the long strands, unwinding the braid. “As long as the cookies turn out all right on the other end, that’s all that matters, right?”

“That’s the kind of attitude I like to see!” Hokuto springs on Tomoyo again, wrapping her arms around her waist this time for a quick nuzzle, before pulling back and examining the other girl.  You’ll never get the flour out of your hair like that. Do you want me to lend you a brush?”

“I actually think I left one of my hairbrushes here the last time I stayed over,” Tomoyo muses. “And thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I think I’m just going to have to wash my hair.”

“What a brilliant idea!” Hokuto exclaims, with a gleam in her eye that Tomoyo has learned to be wary of by now. “I think I should do that too! Do you want to use my shower?”

Tomoyo can very clearly see where Hokuto is going with this. “Shared showers are –”

“A highly efficient use of time and water?”

“But they always end up being _in_ efficient –”

“We have cookies in the oven, Tomoyo-chan. I know I forgot to preheat the oven, but do we have enough time for us both to shower separately and wash our hair?”

“…No.”

“ _There_.” Point made, and extremely satisfied, Hokuto leans back and offers a hand to Tomoyo. “Shall we, my love?”

Tomoyo yields, and takes her girlfriend’s hand, Hokuto leading them both out of the living space to her small bathroom. Tomoyo, sweet in her surrender and holding on to the hand of one she loves very mush as she chatters about clothes and very enthusiastically stripping them both of theirs, cannot hold back the tiniest of smiles.

 

There is time to wait while the cookies bake, and that flour isn’t going to come out of their hair on its own.


End file.
